Word: sitzkrieg
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...often seemed to be little more than hitchhikers on an American battlewagon. Assembling in the sandy arena was the most motley mixture of nationalities and flags on one front since the Napoleonic Wars -- and most of it seemed intended to make a political rather than a military statement. As sitzkrieg turned to blitzkrieg, however, the 28-country alliance proved to be more than international window dressing. Within 24 hours the combined effort made a public believer out of General Colin Powell, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. "It seems to me," he said, "the coalition is holding together...
...military confrontation in the gulf seems to be congealing into a 1990 version of the sitzkrieg. As Germany did after blitzing Poland, Saddam is consolidating his position and gazing across the frontier as his foes assemble their armies. His 56-division, 1.5 million-man force -- last week he called up his reserves -- is clearly on the defensive. In occupied Kuwait his soldiers are digging in. Elite Republican Guard units have been pulled back to join 15 divisions deployed to protect Basra and Baghdad -- or perhaps Saddam himself...
...West, the month-old war seemed virtually over before it had even begun, and there began a period of mysterious inertia on both sides. The British called it the phony war, the French drole de guerre, the Germans Sitzkrieg. But the war was not over. It had barely started...
Death Valley. Despite the advantages they enjoy over Dienbienphu's doomed defenders, the Marines involved in the Con Thien Sitzkrieg are in something less than an enviable position. The 100 or so Communist guns that are trained on them with lethal accuracy are difficult to spot and almost impossible to wipe out except by direct hits. With ranges of up to 18 miles and guns as big as 152-mm. "bunker crackers," enemy ordnance plasters the Marine outposts almost at will. By firing only a few rounds and then quickly moving their artillery pieces or hiding them-in bunkers...
...Sitzkrieg at Checkpoint Charlie still performed a function: in a remarkable way it showed the world how Berlin really felt. One day last week, an elderly woman in a tattered grey coat faced a G.I. bundled on his armored personnel carrier, held out three fresh pink carnations, murmured in German, "I brought you some different colors today; God bless you!" Understanding the sentiment if not the words, the young soldier accepted the flowers with a grin, muttered "Danke schön" proudly stuffed them in the perforated barrel cooler of his 20-mm. cannon. Farther up the street a pack...